se does not understand scholar

[SweetPete]

Replace every use of Succor with an Indom. Saves you a GCD you can spend on Broil instead.
Also, learning the fight makes it easier to expend all 3 charges, not harder. Knowing exactly when an AoE is going out means I can plan to use an Indom over a Succor.
Further, your cohealer would save themselves some work by coordinating you to use Indoms more.
Also, since you mention Catalyze on the Tank, one assumes you're using Adloq. Heres an idea, If you have a charge left over and AF is coming back up .. Maybe DONT Adloq the Tank. Let them take the hit Galvanise would have blocked and justify your Lustrate usage.

And like I said, you can SS twice and Excog twice inside an Aetherflow cooldown. That's 4 potential usages of the 3 Aetherflow charges you get.
Please also remember that Trials/Raids are not the only content in which we heal. Even in an absolutely miracle perfect EX Dungeon run, the party takes unavoidable damage. Waste your spare charge on Indoms and save yourself a GCD.
Ive said before that i'd like the second Healer requirement removed from Trials and raids, as it immediately boosts our healing workload.

For playing a job with a foundation on planning ahead, you sure don't seem to want to plan out Aetherflow usage.

Yet again I agree with you. When solo healing both new ex primals. I am definitely healing more and being more careful than I would if I had a co-healer. I honestly thought SE would surprise us and use 5 dps instead and only use 1 healer in content. I was wrong. If they want us to heal more this is the way to do it. As you said there is always unavoidable party damage. So you will be healing allot. Also maybe that’s why I run out of AF is because I always use indom over succor or use indom then immediately shield them with succor. Especially in fights like innocence ex with his crazy aoes.

[tikiwiki]

I'm genuinely curious as to WTF these SCHs are doing if they can't use 3 AF charges per minute.
First charge should always be Sacred Soil.
Second should almost always be Excog since theres absolutely no reason to not use it.

im not using the stacks since they just end up being 100% overheal and theres no reason to lose dps to weave them when they accomplish nothing

[Hawklaser]

Replying to Connor.
I love what you said. It’s exactly how I feel. I think SE mistake was taking so long to remove sch dps kit so of course the player base got use to it. Sch was never intended to be a hybrid healer. People keep saying that and I never heard Yoshi P or anyone from square say that it was. I’ve always been a healer in every mmo I play. I love healing. All people talk about is damage damage damage. Now I’m not against healers dps let’s get that straight first. It’s fun and exciting. I love helping my team get the job done faster. I would not call sch boring. It’s actually very good now. My issue with sch back in the day is it didn’t have enough healing attached to it. Finally now it does. Solo healing is less of a headache and it’s shields are top notch along with seraph. I love it. In dungeons it’s very fun. Art of war is fun to use. I love being in tank and melee range helping out while still throwing out lustrates on my tank to build my fey gauge. No idea why people are saying it’s boring. Whm’s weren’t all over the forums crying for 4 years about dps. They just wanted a little party support. Now with misery they are a damage machine and that’s ok. It’s their reward for using lilies. Let them have that. I’m very happy in the direction they are taking sch. Let us be more healing with crazy op shields and a healing pet. The aetherflow dump is ok I guess for people that want it but I’m not sure why. In a dungeon run I recitation and excog and shield the tank at the start. Pull wall to wall then I throw down a SS and lustrate the tank as he’s probably half health then. I use aetherflow again. Dps while lustrating the tank. Not sure how people have 2-3 aetherflows left to dump. I mean sometimes I do if the tank is really good at utilizing their defensive cds and our dps doesn’t get hit by aoes. Usually I run out of aetherflows just from excog, SS alone. Sch has been very fun so far and I’m hoping they stick to their guns and not give us back allot of dps abilities. An aetherflow dump will be fine as it’s what most sch are asking for so give them that but keep our dps.

Sorry, but if SE keeps going down this path with Sch, I'll probably shelf it for good. Its thematic feel of a Military Tactician has shifted a bit in Shadowbringers, and if it keeps shifting in this direction its not going to really feel right anymore and therefor disjointed and unfun to me, which is totally different from if it is an effective healer or not.

Keep in mind the only healing class initially available until level 30 was Conjuror. At which point you could unlock the the Whm job, and later after a few patches Sch. Arcanist was designed as a DPS class, DoT/Pet Based. I am pretty sure the dps was DoT based to help free up player attention for pet management.

With Sch building upon the Arcanist foundation, and being shield based it had a very strategic and tactical feel to it, befitting of the Tactician thematic. With the weaker heals, you had to plan ahead and shield before the aoe's hit. You had to plan ahead to have aetherflow charges on hand to help cover spike damage and player screw ups. You had to plan ahead to know when you could Miasma+Bio+Bane to help clear things quickly. There were also some synergies between Sch's toolkit and Warriors, as Lustrate was originally a %max HP based heal.

Sacred Soil manipulated the battlefield in a defensive manor, while Shadow Flare was an offensive manor. Manipulating the battlefield is something that very much fits with the tactician thematic of the Scholar job. We lost Shadow Flare, an AoE DoT+slow, yet Whm can have Holy with its stun to help on big pulls.

Art of War just clashes with the whole tactician thematic to me, as it places you in the one spot a tactician would try and avoid if at all possible, the middle of a melee. Shadow Flare, Miasma, Bio, and Bane could have done with reskins/renames for a better overall fit, but their actual usage already fit the thematic.

The whole reason I went with Sch over Whm way back in ARR was due to thematics, and its more proactive playstyle which necessitated planning ahead.

Cycling between a handful of limited oGCDs most of the important ones with a 1m gated resource, only a handful of GCD heal options. Dps rotations of Art of War for AoE, and Bio -> Broil/Ruin til need to reapply bio for when there is not much healing need do not make a very engaging class. The fact that the Fairy can handle most incidental healing as well. Plus thanks to the current damage spacing in battles, and people getting better overtime, there is becoming less and less need to plan ahead. As in most encounters the big group wide blasts are often spaced farther apart than Indom's Cooldown for example, so very few things actually need pre-hit succor shields.

Its this thematic shift that is hurting Sch Players the most I would say.

[MOZZYSTAR]

I agree with some of the others in that I don't think the dev team understands healers in general. When I first started, this is how people generally categorised the healers:

WHM: "easy/straight forward" healer for beginners, big heals, reactive heals
SCH: "diffficult/strategic" healer for beginners, "DPS" healer, preventative/mitigating damage healer
Back then, AST wasn't a thing.

I think it's good to have variety, and even different levels of "hardness" for classes. It's just so odd to me that the team really doesn't understand these classes or healers all together, and yet they're the original team? If that's the case, how could they have first made thes classes only to sabotage them completely? WHM, I heard was decent now... But AST is basically moot now, and SCH lost its identity. It's ridiculous.

I just want to know what they're thinking outside of the BS they feed us. And I want, with every fibre, for AST and SCH to go back to the way they were. As it is, I really just cannot will myself to play AST or SCH on either of my characters, and it sucks because I prefer healing over all else. (Sorry, WHM, but I dumped you back when HW came out nd I will never get back into you. POtentially. We'll see how long my will lasts.)

[Connor]

Sorry, but if SE keeps going down this path with Sch, I'll probably shelf it for good. Its thematic feel of a Military Tactician has shifted a bit in Shadowbringers, and if it keeps shifting in this direction its not going to really feel right anymore and therefor disjointed and unfun to me, which is totally different from if it is an effective healer or not.

Keep in mind the only healing class initially available until level 30 was Conjuror. At which point you could unlock the the Whm job, and later after a few patches Sch. Arcanist was designed as a DPS class, DoT/Pet Based. I am pretty sure the dps was DoT based to help free up player attention for pet management.

With Sch building upon the Arcanist foundation, and being shield based it had a very strategic and tactical feel to it, befitting of the Tactician thematic. With the weaker heals, you had to plan ahead and shield before the aoe's hit. You had to plan ahead to have aetherflow charges on hand to help cover spike damage and player screw ups. You had to plan ahead to know when you could Miasma+Bio+Bane to help clear things quickly. There were also some synergies between Sch's toolkit and Warriors, as Lustrate was originally a %max HP based heal.

Sacred Soil manipulated the battlefield in a defensive manor, while Shadow Flare was an offensive manor. Manipulating the battlefield is something that very much fits with the tactician thematic of the Scholar job. We lost Shadow Flare, an AoE DoT+slow, yet Whm can have Holy with its stun to help on big pulls.

Art of War just clashes with the whole tactician thematic to me, as it places you in the one spot a tactician would try and avoid if at all possible, the middle of a melee. Shadow Flare, Miasma, Bio, and Bane could have done with reskins/renames for a better overall fit, but their actual usage already fit the thematic.

The whole reason I went with Sch over Whm way back in ARR was due to thematics, and its more proactive playstyle which necessitated planning ahead.

Cycling between a handful of limited oGCDs most of the important ones with a 1m gated resource, only a handful of GCD heal options. Dps rotations of Art of War for AoE, and Bio -> Broil/Ruin til need to reapply bio for when there is not much healing need do not make a very engaging class. The fact that the Fairy can handle most incidental healing as well. Plus thanks to the current damage spacing in battles, and people getting better overtime, there is becoming less and less need to plan ahead. As in most encounters the big group wide blasts are often spaced farther apart than Indom's Cooldown for example, so very few things actually need pre-hit succor shields.

Its this thematic shift that is hurting Sch Players the most I would say.

I get being unhappy with the changes, but I don’t agree that Scholar must be balancing damage and healing for it to be a ‘tactical healer’. Having nothing to during downtime and nothing interesting to manage is definitely frustrating, but I feel like it’s just taking Scholar’s identity down the wrong direction by making it focused on dealing direct damage.

I think a better balance of interesting buff/debuff/utility would make Scholar feel much more ‘tactical’ than it is now. But I feel like the more value our DPS has, the less we’re able to think tactically about how to use our other abilities.

In 4.0 for example, with Quickened Aetherflow and stronger Fairy heals I could throw Excogitation on the tank and know for a fact that outside of some generally rare situations I can safely use all further Aetherflow on Energy Drain for the DPS increase. Incoming damage could always be covered by Whispering Dawn and the occasional Indomitability spell. The tactical value of all other Aetherflow abilities becomes diminished when any one of them has direct damage attached to it (why use Lustrate or Sacred Soil when you can use Energy Drain or Shadowflare and kill it quicker?)

Naturally, these issues are also deeper than Scholar’s design itself, due to healing design for general content being so massively undermined that a Scholar often doesn’t need to plan out what they’re going to next for healing. I feel like the current Scholar especially would be much more enjoyable if we had to actually make strategic use of the toolkit for healing, instead of being able to cover all of it so easily.

Scholar’s feel of a ‘tactical healer’ can come back, but it doesn’t necessarily need to have damage dealing skills in order for this to happen (at least in my opinion).

As an aside, I think everyone can agree that Art of War really was just lazy. Not only the reused animation, but the fact that there’s nothing ‘tactical’ or ‘Scholar-y’ about it

[Hawklaser]

I get being unhappy with the changes, but I don’t agree that Scholar must be balancing damage and healing for it to be a ‘tactical healer’. Having nothing to during downtime and nothing interesting to manage is definitely frustrating, but I feel like it’s just taking Scholar’s identity down the wrong direction by making it focused on dealing direct damage.

I think a better balance of interesting buff/debuff/utility would make Scholar feel much more ‘tactical’ than it is now. But I feel like the more value our DPS has, the less we’re able to think tactically about how to use our other abilities.

In 4.0 for example, with Quickened Aetherflow and stronger Fairy heals I could throw Excogitation on the tank and know for a fact that outside of some generally rare situations I can safely use all further Aetherflow on Energy Drain for the DPS increase. Incoming damage could always be covered by Whispering Dawn and the occasional Indomitability spell. The tactical value of all other Aetherflow abilities becomes diminished when any one of them has direct damage attached to it (why use Lustrate or Sacred Soil when you can use Energy Drain or Shadowflare and kill it quicker?)

Naturally, these issues are also deeper than Scholar’s design itself, due to healing design for general content being so massively undermined that a Scholar often doesn’t need to plan out what they’re going to next for healing. I feel like the current Scholar especially would be much more enjoyable if we had to actually make strategic use of the toolkit for healing, instead of being able to cover all of it so easily.

Scholar’s feel of a ‘tactical healer’ can come back, but it doesn’t necessarily need to have damage dealing skills in order for this to happen (at least in my opinion).

As an aside, I think everyone can agree that Art of War really was just lazy. Not only the reused animation, but the fact that there’s nothing ‘tactical’ or ‘Scholar-y’ about it

I'd be fine with loosing some of the Dps sides of Sch as long as the class kept the tactical and planning thematic that are the key staple to the class. And right now, that feeling really isn't there currently. The tactical/planning thematic is also part of why Exocog made such a wonderful capstone skill, while Seraph just feels bleh in comparison.(Don't get me wrong Seraph is a good tool, it just really doesn't fit the Sch thematic)

[Connor]

I'd be fine with loosing some of the Dps sides of Sch as long as the class kept the tactical and planning thematic that are the key staple to the class. And right now, that feeling really isn't there currently. The tactical/planning thematic is also part of why Exocog made such a wonderful capstone skill, while Seraph just feels bleh in comparison.(Don't get me wrong Seraph is a good tool, it just really doesn't fit the Sch thematic)

Yeah, I understand what you mean. I feel like the developers wanted to make Scholar easier to pick up, which is fine, but the result is that it lost a lot of the tactical complexity it had and could have had for Shadowbringers. The developers tunnel-visioned so much on adding direct healing to all three healers that they didn’t think of alternatives that would make Scholar feel more like a ‘Scholar’

[Brightamethyst]

The tactical/planning thematic is also part of why Exocog made such a wonderful capstone skill, while Seraph just feels bleh in comparison.(Don't get me wrong Seraph is a good tool, it just really doesn't fit the Sch thematic)

To be fair, the capstone skills have been fairy related in every expansion so far (Excog is level 62.) Dissipation, Fey Union, and now now Seraph. They've mostly been terrible, but let's not pretend like fairy related skill are a new thing they just sprung on us.

[tikiwiki]

To be fair, the capstone skills have been fairy related in every expansion so far (Excog is level 62.) Dissipation, Fey Union, and now now Seraph. They've mostly been terrible, but let's not pretend like fairy related skill are a new thing they just sprung on us.

underwhelming skills are the theme of sch capstones

[Hawklaser]

To be fair, the capstone skills have been fairy related in every expansion so far (Excog is level 62.) Dissipation, Fey Union, and now now Seraph. They've mostly been terrible, but let's not pretend like fairy related skill are a new thing they just sprung on us.

Just goes to show how badly having the capstones be fairy skills fit into the thematic of the job overall then doesn't it? The fairy isn't supposed the be the star of the show.

I had to go double check the 60/70 capstones. Dissipation and Aether Pact... both of which don't see a ton of uptime, compared to Exocog where I want near 100% uptime, and then the next closest to a true capstone that fits thematically I would say is Recitation or Chain Stratagem. Currently Dissipation is more of an aetherflow refresh between trash pulls if aetherflow is on cooldown since can't use it out of combat any more. Aether pact... I have had that one be a bit derpy a few times to many between knockbacks and tanks dodging aoes, resulting in it being active, but also inactive at the same time.